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How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of GlobalizationComments Well, I'm a big football fan and I was very interested to read what an american scholar could write about the most beautiful game in the planet... His work is very well researched and actually shows a love for the game that is transmitted but I have to admit that I almost skipped two entire chapters (the ones about the Islam and Judaism) because it was obvious that they were just fillers to have the book with more pages and so it could be sold like a book. <br />Maybe buy it used for half the price or rent it in a library, because the bad move of filling the book with boring (yawn) chapters makes this book not eligible to be bought to it's sugested retail price. <br /> I'll confess that I'm a soccer fanatic with a degree in Political Science, there could hardly be a more biased critic. Foer's book is my dream come true, brilliantly weaving soccer and globalization in a highly successful and intriguing manner. Especially poignant are chapters on Red Star Belgrade (from the former Yugoslavia), Seria A, La Liga and the famed Celtic-Rangers rivalry of the Scottish league. I was somewhat disappointed with the final chapter on U.S. soccer, which I felt largely ignored the growing passion of American fans for soccer moms and yuppies which fit better with Foer's personal story. There was also nothing mentioned about the accomplishments of MLS over the past decade. <br /> <br /> Some will say Foer has a hiddden agenda and is bashing the sport with vivid portrayals of hooliganism, but in reality his carefully researched explanations put much of the blame on tribalism and ethnic rivalries that predate soccer by hundreds of years. I whole-heartedly recommend "How Soccer Explains the World" for both casual and hardcore fans of 'the beautiful game.' This book is a bigotry masqueraded behind the veil of a "scholarly work." Every rule of rigorous work has been violated in this piece of work building on the darkest but forever smallest side of "soccer." Wasting this great opportunity to reveal the multi-dimensional power of the game the author invests his bitterness against the sport page-after-page. A sweet revenge for "soccer" rejecting him in his early age? Well... my advise to the author... keep on running away from the ball sir... and please stay away from it!!! You are RUINING THE GAME!!! |
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